Shropshire

by Helen Gaffney

Shropshire is one of the most beautiful and unspoilt parts of Britain you could imagine. Shropshire has been called "England's best-kept secret". It is a county of wide-ranging appeal both for residents and the many visitors who come each year, with outstanding natural beauty and great historic interest as well as modern developments. Shropshire's scenery varies from the meres of the north to the hills of the centre and south, with breath-taking views from Wenlock Edge, the Long Mynd and The Wrekin, and around the River Severn as it wanders through the county. However, it is also a working landscape with farming and related industries, business parks and busy commercial centres. Everywhere in Shropshire there is evidence of the county's remarkable past. Attractive villages and market towns boast handsome medieval churches and decorated half-timbered buildings from Tudor times, while the Ironbridge World Heritage Site reminds us that Shropshire is where the Industrial Revolution began.

Shropshire Blue is a cows’ milk cheese that has a pressed red curd and is extremely attractive. It has the taste of a cheddar which combined with the tangy blue makes an excellent cheese. The cheese has a mild flavour and an excellent taste. It has a deep orange-brown, natural rind. Shropshire Blue matures for a period of ten weeks and the fat content is about 34 percent. It was first made in the 1970s and has since gained much popularity. It is a useful cooking cheese and makes an excellent flan.

The region is famous for a number of meat pies, particularly Shropshire Fidget Pie, Hare Pie and Shropshire Rabbit Pie or Shropshire Pie. The name ‘fidget’ is said to come from the fact that this particular pie was originally ‘fitched’ or five-sided in shape. The Hare Pie is a well-flavoured game pie that can be topped either with shortcrust or puff pastry. It is traditionally served with redcurrant or crab apple jelly. It can also be served with the additional accompaniment of English veal forcemeat balls. Shropshire Pie is a luxury rabbit pie and dates from the eighteenth century. The original recipe would have contained oysters and artichoke bottoms.

A famous dish from the border area known as the Welsh Marches is Loin of pork and cabbage cake. It was traditionally served at pig-killing time, which was an occasion for celebration, when the family pig was despatched to produce hams, bacon, sausages, black puddings, pies and much more to carry on through the following months.

Shrewsbury is a town with a long history and is famous for a particular type of biscuit. One of the better-known recipes was by a Mr Palin in 1819. The original was very hard indeed so the modern recipe is a softer version to suit our current tastes. Mr Palin of Shrewsbury was renowned for his particular mix of Shrewsbury biscuits.

Elizabeth Anderton in her ‘A Little Shropshire Gift Book’, published in 1978 says:

"Mr Palin, prince of cake compounders, the mouth liquefies at thy very name! This fulsome praise, given in one of ‘The Ingoldsby Legends’, is for Mr Palin of Shrewsbury, renowned for his particular mix of Shrewsbury cake or biscuits. These used to be bought by visitors in much the same way as shortbread in Scotland or clotted cream in Devon. Recipes vary considerably but all contain spices and rosewater which is the ingredient that gives the distinctive flavour to Turkish Delight. Different instructions specify the use of nutmeg, caraway, cinnamon; many add "sack" or sherry."

In the early part of the 20th century, the small town of Market Drayton had four gingerbread bakers. The smell of the spicy little finger would have wafted around the town. The first recorded mention is Roland Lateward, maltster, who was baking gingerbread in 1793. It was probably made earlier. There were already large stocks of ginger in High Street businesses in the 1640’s and 1680’s. 'Gingerbrede', the oldest cake bread in the world, arrived in this country with the Crusades. The earliest recipe dates from 1390. Billington’s, from 1817, is the oldest surviving brand. Its history is proudly displayed on their packaging as an unbroken chain of bakers around the trunk of a tree, whose branches extend to markets all over the world.

Another tradition from the county is that of Soul Cakes. On All Souls’ Day on the 2nd of November, the dead are remembered and children would go ‘a-souling’. Singing:

“A soul-cake, a soul-cake, please,
good missus, a soul-cake.
One for Peter, two for Paul,
three for Him who saved us all.”

They would receive, in return, a cake marked with a cross. A similar type of cake was Shropshire Special Cakes. Like Soul Cakes, these were eaten on All Souls’ Day in memory of the departed. In the Welsh Border counties, children would be given these cakes that were also traditionally marked with a cross.

The region is a vast area of considerable contrast. The countryside remains fresh, well-established and unpolluted. Food and drink here holds many contrasts. In the past, certainly, those workers who flooded into the new factories that developed after the onset of the Industrial Revolution which began in the Ironbridge Gorge must have lived, at times, on an exceedingly frugal and monotonous diet. Working and social conditions have improved over the centuries and today manual workers do not appear to fare too badly.